


Set wide the window

by jonasnightingale



Series: Heavy Accents & Swollen Ankles [7]
Category: Law & Order: SVU
Genre: Covid Fic, F/M, Gen, Rollisi, otp: I just want her to be happy, otp: sure you won't get a sandwich with me
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-24
Updated: 2020-10-04
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:27:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,659
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26628259
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jonasnightingale/pseuds/jonasnightingale
Summary: The COVID fic no one asked for. I just couldn't get it out of my head so here we are.Carisi moves into the Rollins' household for lock-down; moments in their life inside.
Relationships: Dominick "Sonny" Carisi Jr. & Amanda Rollins, Dominick "Sonny" Carisi Jr./Amanda Rollins
Series: Heavy Accents & Swollen Ankles [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1595524
Comments: 12
Kudos: 80





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Let us not get bogged down in the reality of lockdown rules and situations for courts etc etc okay?

Her eyes follow his form across the kitchen. He’s bouncing Billie on one hip, stirring something on the stovetop, and dancing towards Jesse where she’s sounding aloud a book at the table. He fits so perfectly here, she’s scared that they’ll never fill the spaces left by him when this whole thing ends. 

He had shown up the day lock-down was announced with an armful of groceries and a duffel bag thrown over his shoulder. “What was your plan here Rollins? Let me help.” As always, he’d known exactly what she’d needed. Because he was right, she didn’t have a plan, she didn’t know what to do. 

It was working surprisingly well. His work had moved largely online and he seemed to be coping with the digital workload and caring for her girls. She wasn’t coping with everything so well; the anxiety every time she cuffed a perp, every time she had witnesses close their doors in her face for fear of transmission, every time another child got shot doing her classes at home. 

She had expected flack from the team about the new living arrangements but aside from the occasional “How’s the shacking up going?”, the squad has expressed none of the teasing she’d been so sure would come. Maybe they were waiting til laughter felt like less of an affront. 

It didn’t hurt that Carisi kept them plied with baked goods. 

Things between them hadn’t changed, per se, but they were learning more with each passing day, getting comfortable in new ways. It was no longer awkward to start her mornings with Carisi topless around the house, she’d got used to the weight of his eyes on the scar of her shoulder, no longer thought twice about pulling his socks and jocks out with her washing. She’d grown familiar with the sound of him turning pages late into the night, the push-ups he’d do when sleep remained elusive, the husk of his voice when her nightmares would wake him with a start. The pull-out couch was permanently set in his bed and crawling across it to watch tv or movies no longer required the little puff of laughter it had in the early days. 

She had new appreciation for his family too, for the weekly zoom call between them. The sincerity in his sisters voices when they would ask “And how’s Amanda?”, as if they had been asking it for years. The cooing of adoring voices when Billie would wiggle her chubby fingers in the camera. Even the muffled slap and grunt that came swiftly following Jerry’s “Sure looks like a Carisi to me, you sure she ain’t yours Sonny?”. She was learning to recognise the tension between his shoulders when Dominick Snr was a few too many drinks down and would start laying in about his son’s softness. Was learning to expect the way Mia would always jump in with a funny story about her online classes to break the tension. Whenever Amanda would get pulled into the camera view, Mama Carisi would inevitably cluck her tongue and chastise “Sonny, you’ve gotta feed this girl more.”, and Amanda would pointedly ignore the amused look on Bella’s face. 

She wants to tell him there’s nothing wrong with soft. That - whatever his dad may say - he’s one of the strongest people she’s ever known. That she wouldn’t be where she is today, who she is today, without him having been beside her. That his strength comes from his soft, and that that’s nothing to be ashamed of. But she supposes everyone has their parents scars to compete with, so instead she runs her hand down his back and gets Jesse to distract him with her Italian storybooks while she orders take-out (because “Sonny, we have to support the local businesses”). 

Jesse tells her one night, “I want Uncle Sonny to stay forever” and Amanda feels her heart fracture in her chest, whispering a soft “Me too” into her daughters hair. 

It’s sort of surreal to come home and find Mrs Barba’s face on one computer talking Jesse through an assignment, Carisi cradling an asleep Billie as he negotiates with Calhoun on another. She’s had such a hard day, the pandemic has seemingly brought out the best in lots of communities, but it’s also left people trapped in abusive households with no escape, rapists and pedophiles who would usually get their kicks elsewhere turning their attention to home. Add to that Liv’s anxiety around Noah’s vulnerability with his scarred lungs, the tension headache pounding at her temples, and Kim’s phone call about this mass overreaction to a flu, and Amanda’s just done. She wants a round of drinks, warm hands on her. She wants to sit in a damn bar and not think twice about the distance between bodies. Instead she kicks off her shoes and skirts quietly about the apartment, deftly avoiding the field of view from Carisi’s computer and ducking over to give Jesse a quick kiss hello. Mrs Barba smiles warmly at her and a pang shoots through her, she misses Rafael. After exchanging pleasantries and wowing over the work Jesse is doing, Amanda disappears to her room. Standing in the doorway, watching this cobbled family, she lets the exhaustion hit her, lets the tears drip over her eyelids before retreating to the shower.

The world still feels heavy on her shoulders, a weight pushing her further and further down, but she feels more in control of her emotions. She checks on Billie - now asleep in her crib - then settles at the kitchen bench where Jesse is proudly displaying her work to Carisi. As Jesse packs up her school supplies, Amanda clocks Carisi where he’s leant against the counter watching her. “So… Lucia Barba hey?” He looks bashful for a moment but her eyes are soft on him.  
“Yeah. Uh, I was kinda swamped. She’s been a teacher for forever, honestly think she was happy just to do it again.”  
“I didn’t realise you and Barba were that close. To know his Mami so well.” His eyes duck away and back and she realises just how much collateral damage Barba left in his wake.  
“Yeah well.” He looks at Jesse putting her own work on the fridge and smiles, “Jesse loves her. Might be good to arrange some more zoom classes together.” She has to restrain herself from crossing the kitchen and wrapping her arms around him.  
“Sounds nice.”

It’s been one of those mornings. Tantrums all round, missing keys, spilled breakfast. By the time she’s changed shirts and settled Jesse in front of the tv with fresh cereal, Carisi is standing by the door holding her keys triumphantly, her bag slung over the shoulder that Billie isn’t currently blowing raspberries against. She would laugh at the sight if she wasn’t running so late. Grabbing the keys and bag from Carisi and leaning in with a “Love you baby girl” to kiss Billie on the cheek, she doesn’t even realise when she turns her face and plants a quick kiss on Carisi’s cheek too before shouting “Bye!” and dashing out the door. Halfway to the precinct her brain catches up and she feels the embarrassed flush fill her face. He doesn’t mention it when she comes home to find him watching Frozen with the girls. She thinks maybe his eyes look a little softer, but then again maybe that’s just the magic of Elsa and Anna. The next morning she kisses Billie where she’s sat in her highchair, throwing her hair into a pony as she shrugs on her coat. She’s almost to the door when Carisi yells out, “What no kiss today?” She rolls her eyes, blows him a kiss and gives him the finger, then shuts the door firmly on his laughter.

She thinks that it could be so easy to slip her hands in his hair, throw her leg over his hips and close the distance between them. They’re watching tv on the couch, which really means they’re sitting on his bed, his duvet drawn up over her feet. The bottle of wine shared between them has her cheeks pink and her eyes all but glued to where his head is resting on the couch back. For the first time in an age she thinks about Virginia, about his form leaning down over hers. But that thought is followed by a less pleasant one, a memory of sitting alone at the bar for one drink before relieving the babysitter. “I ever tell you I got promoted?” His head turns quickly her way, eyes wide.  
“What? No you didn’t. Congrats Rollins! When?” She smiles at him, tries to keep the tinge of sadness out of it. She wonders if those two events will always be linked in her mind - the promotion and his rejection. She keeps her response vague, a one sided shrug.  
“A while ago. Yeah, thank you. Only took me eight years but..”  
“That’s so amazing Amanda, I’m proud of you.” She tops up their glasses and turns her attention back to the screen.

Half an hour has gone by when he finally asks softly “Why didn’t you tell me?” and she sighs heavily through her nose. Shouldn’t have mentioned it.  
“Come on Carisi.”  
“No, I just, I mean this is big news, not the kinda thing you forget to mention.” She quirks her brow at him and settles further into the duvet.  
“You were busy. It’s not a big deal Sonny.” She can practically see him running through the timeline in his head, the interactions with the squad, the clues he could have missed. “It was during the Sir Toby case. You had bigger things going on.” His eyes cut to hers suddenly, a flash of recognition.  
“The drink. The sitter.” She shrugs, brushes her hair out of her face, tries for a smile. There’s something intense in his eyes, a look she’s not used to but doesn’t shy away from. 

His heavy gaze shifts from her eyes to her shoulder. Her shirt hangs loosely around her frame and the sniper scar peaks from under its collar. His fingers slowly reach towards it, ghosting over the skin as she tries to remember to breathe. He’s moved closer, breathing in the same air, and she can hear her heart hammering in her ears. She can feel his breath in short puffs against her exposed shoulder, his fingers resting delicately on her collarbone. He looks up to catch her eye, asking for permission with his gaze, before gently kissing the mark. Her eyes slip closed at the feel of his lips and she lets out a shaky exhale. His voice is quiet and rough, accent heavy through it, “This okay?” She opens her eyes and finds he has pulled back. He’s still close, closer than normal, but she feels at once that it’s too far away. His gaze is steady on hers, nervous, searching. She breaths out a “Yeah.”


	2. Chapter 2

Being a part of the Rollins’ household had come so easily, it was almost like coming home. He took comfort in the signs they’d kept his space in their lives vacant - the Italian storybooks in the girls shelves, his favourite sorbet in the freezer, the photo of him holding Jesse next to Rollins and Billie in their maternity bed on the fridge. But living here, he’d also become painfully aware of the ways they hadn’t - the frequent calls to Hasim Khaldun, the eclectic taste palate of Billie he couldn’t quite figure out, the teachers from Jesse’s school who didn’t recognise his face. He was learning to live with the weight of these realisations, the knowledge that he had let them down. 

But all things considered, it was going well. Sure his back was wrecked from Amanda’s cheap pull-out couch and he spent his days with a ball of anxiety in his gut, but he was content here, helping the girls with their classes, showing them how to cook, watching Rollins soften when she closed the door on the world. He’d got a few comments when zoom meeting’s included a dozing Billie in his arms or an interrupting Jesse running through the view but the questions of “You’ve got kids, Counsellor?” were easily dismissed with a “They’re my god-daughters, just helping out their Ma.” The kindness of these people outside the courtroom had surprised him - offers from Kressler and Guthrie to drop around groceries if he needed, Calhoun’s less than subtle ways of asking how the squad was, Buchanan smiling at Jesse and humouring her questions when she crashed their meeting, even Hadid dropping into conversation the paternity leave he could apply for. Where they were so often just figures spouting arguments and law, watching them in their home offices revealed other dimensions they didn’t see of each other in normal life - the fat tabby cat who revelled in strolling across Braun’s desk at inopportune times, the modern art and collection of extravagant plants in Barth's apartment, the background noise of Deputy Chief Garland’s family.

They’d gotten past the awkwardness of the first few days, the red cheeks at catching the other in varying degrees of undress, the slight squeal Amanda had let out that first time she’d found him sweaty and mid pushup in the lounge-room. There was no longer the tense laugh at brushing their teeth side by side or the false formality of sitting on opposing corners of his bed when watching tv. He took secret joy in the way her eyes would drink in his torso before her brain had woken up of a morning, enjoyed the way their occasionally easy intimacy had spilled over in this confined space - casual brushing past each other, gentle hands on shoulders and backs, unchecked gazes. 

It had been a doozy of a morning the day he’d first seen it. Amanda was holding a fussing Billie, trying with varying degrees of success to settle the girl. Her shirt had slipped off the shoulder and Carisi had frozen stock still where he was standing with Jesse’s breakfast. He knew what a bullet scar looked like and his blood ran cold. She’d thrown him an exasperated look as Jesse called out his name and he swiftly resumed his task. But that sight plagued him. He thought about it when he closed his eyes at night, when her comfy clothes dipped low enough to hint at the mark there, even when they didn’t. He wanted to ask, to know the details - who, why? Had it been at SVU? Atlanta? Who had been there to stop the bleeding? Who had held her hand at the hospital? Had anyone? Did they get the bastard? But if there’s one thing he’s learnt about Rollins all these years, it’s that she runs on her own timelines, she won’t tell him unless she wants to. So he bites his tongue and thinks about all the sweeping blank spaces in what he knows about this woman, how he loves her anyway, how maybe one day he’ll get to fill in the gaps. 

They’re learning more about each other, in this tight proximity. He learns about her nightmares, wakes to her stifled moans and quiet chants of “no, please no” more than once, gets to know the quiet shake of her hands when she tells him she's fine and to go back to sleep. He’s proud to know she’s keeping her weekly appointment with Doctor Hanover, tries to shake the disquiet in his gut each time Nick calls to check in. He’s getting familiar with the sad tone of each unanswered call to her mother, the deep sigh that accompanies each voicemail left by her father. The silence between their brood makes him flood with guilt each Sunday when his family gathers on zoom boisterous and unrelenting.

His mother had been overjoyed when she’d learned his location, an overly cheerful “Oh! How wonderful!” bubbling through the speakers. He’d watched his sisters reactions - Bella’s waggle of her eyebrows, Gina’s large gulp of water to conceal her grin, Teresa’s concerned dip of her brow. They still asked, every week, the same script they’d been following for years, “How’s work? And how’s Amanda?” But now the fond - if gently ribbing - enquiry was laced with teasing, a blatant expectation. He watches the way she quietly tiptoes around the apartment on these calls, is always torn between wanting her to feel a part of it and not wanting to subject her to his crazy sisters. But when her face is next to his in the little zoom window it fills him with a traitorous hope.

The new chasm between them that had developed since his relocation to the DA’s office was suddenly gone and there was no place for the denial of what she was to him. Not when Jesse was asking “You’ll stay forever right Uncle Sonny?” and he was trying to find the words to explain loves nuances, not when Amanda in all her harried morning glory pressed a firm kiss into his cheek on the way out the door like she’d done it every day of her life. The story Rollins had told that day with Sergeant Khaldun, sometimes it echoed in his mind, sometimes he thought it could be them. 

After near a year of radio silence, the text from Rafael Barba is unexpected. ‘I hear you’re riding out the pandemic with the Rollins clan - take good care of our girl. And you, take care of yourself too Carisi.’ His eyes track the slump of her shoulders when she walks in the door, the unsteady exhale and sad smile when he reads her the message. There’s reminders of Barba throughout the house, in a framed photo from the day making robots after Noah’s return, in the Harvard onesie still in Billie’s dresser. Barba, Declan, Doctor Al - reminders of all the men that have left them behind. His stomach churns as he thinks of that day in the squad-room, her face as she accused “You said you’re my partner. You walked out on me.”, how he had been another in a too long line of men to disappoint these girls. He gives into their pleading to watch ‘Frozen’ yet again that night. Sings along to the lyrics with Jesse and lets Billie play with his fingers, Franny asleep across his ankles. When Amanda huddles in behind Jesse he spreads his arm across the couch back, an inch from drawing her into a one-armed hug. The lasagne has an extra cheese crust that night, just the way she likes it. 

He worries about her out there, let’s the pile of face masks from his mother and cousin Nikki pile up beside the door, tracks the news obsessively. He knows the team is being as safe as possible, but he stresses about the perps they arrest, the witnesses they interview, sometimes he finds himself counting the possible points of transmission in her day. Still they sing the happy birthday song so many times it loses meaning, Jesse makes a game of spraying the doorknobs, and he puts on so many loads of washing it becomes a daily chore. Thrumming beneath everything is a quiet prayer, please God let us get through this. 

There’s something in her face when she shrugs, “A while ago. Yeah, thank you. Only took me eight years but..”, a shadow across the glowing news of her promotion. He traces their conversations, tries to recall flowers on her desk or loud cheering comments from Fin. “You had bigger things going on.” The realisation feels like a gut punch. There’s an embarrassed flush to her neck, a reluctance to meet his eye. He thinks about that night, the way she’d looked at him so candidly, her lips around his seldom used first name. There had been so much on his plate, so many competing demands that he didn’t know how Amanda - with their complicated history and all the complexities of their relationship - could fit into this new chapter. They’d been flirting with more for so long, he didn’t have it in him to deal with the subtleties and unspoken things between them, not that night. Not even with the sitter and drink or three on offer. He’d thought there’d be another chance, another night to share laughs over the top of beer bottles, another day when they were less dragged down by the weight of it all. What a fool. 

His eyes drift to her shoulder, to the hint of puckered skin at the neckline. How did he ever bank on there being more time? How did he let her leave - being in the jobs they were - and assume there would be another chance to get it right? How many times had he had a gun drawn on him on the job, how often had she been in hostage situations? His fingers trace over the scar softly, a whisper of a caress. How do they proceed when tomorrow is not guaranteed? His mouth is against her skin, a gentle devotion. He feels her shaky exhale against his ear, pulls back to watch her blue eyes slip open on his quiet “This okay?” His voice is uneven and he feels like a teenager again; unsure, scared. His heart is in his throat. He thinks about this home around him, the easy normalcy of their morning routine, of dancing in her kitchen meal-prepping while she puts the girls to sleep in the evenings, of their Saturday exercise hour walking along the park with Franny tugging him forward in earnest; what if he just broke the spell?

But then she smiles, blinding and bashful and all the incongruous things she is that he finds so beautiful. She utters a simple “Yeah.” into the space between them and the panic dissipates. It feels inevitable, pre-destined. His hand drifts into her hair, eyes raking down her face, and his heart skips at the weight of her palm on his thigh. “Yeah, perfect.”

**Author's Note:**

> Title from:  
> “Set wide the window. Let me drink the day.”  
> ― Edith Wharton, Artemis to Actaeon and Other Verses


End file.
